Re: How many lenders

I would talk to at least three. Get good faith estimates from them for the price range you are looking for, and then compare their rates & closing costs. This should give you a general direction as to who you want to work with, and then you can start posing specific questions to an officer.

Alternately a broker can kind of handle all this for you if you want to go that route. They will get details on your specific situation and try to find the best lender and loan for you.

Re: How many lenders

Don't authorize them to pull your scores yet. You can pull your scores with a soft hit which won't affect your scores. Take that in to any lenders you speak with, and have them run numbers for a prequalification based on those. Then, when you have chosen a lender and are ready to be approved for a contract, you can let them run your credit for real which will result in a hard inquiry. It's my understanding that credit bureaus will lump all inquiries related to a single event -- like your mortgage -- so long as they occur within 30 days of one another. The problem is that you are very likely to have at least two pulled if you let anyone perform a hard inquiry right now. By the time you pick a house, get under contract and make it to underwriting it might be more than a month, and they will absolutely pull your credit again then.

Re: How many lenders

Now aint this some boo boo. The mortgage lender did a good faith estimate of 110K based off of my credit situation without a credit pull, but I have a hassle with my credit union, and they won't give me an estimate unless they do a credit pull from all 3, and they take the middle score. That is not an estimate that is going through the application process. The mortgage lender does downpayment assistance and the credit union does not. It sounds like I would get a better deal with the mortgage lender. What you think?

Re: How many lenders

I have heard credit unions are fantastic if you can work with one. It might be worth waiting until you are ready to offer on a home, then proceed with applying through them as well as the lender. That way the inquiries will lump together, and then you can really compare them.

It's very odd that they won't talk to you without doing an application though.

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